Split: Return to Darkness
by MaudlinFoibles
Summary: Post Brotherhood: Slade has returned, and with him is a new minion. However, his old apprentice is back in the cross hairs, and the Titans quickly realize they've got a time limit to save Robin this time. Not really sure where I'm going with this.
1. Destruction at Wayne Enterprises

It's January, and as promised…here begins the rewrite of Split Concerns. It was due for a makeover anyway.

Split takes place after…everything. Slade's back from the dead, the Titans defeated the Brotherhood, and Terra's statue is gone. Just makes it easier, doesn't it? I don't anticipate the story getting too bad, so it's at a T rating for now, may bump it up if I feel it's necessary.

Wish me luck!

-Lio

* * *

"Another day, Robin. Another day."

Then he hit a button, or twisted a dial, or something, and then everything fell to pieces.

Literally.

That red light kept flashing, slowly, like a heartbeat, giving quick snapshots of everything collapsing around him. Where was the door? Where were the other Titans? They had to get out, gears were disconnecting from however they were hung and crashing and rolling to the ground.

He couldn't see the door anymore. There was too much rubble in the way. The roof was caving in. He was trapped. He couldn't see. The flashing red light was blocked by a fallen gear. He heard someone calling his name, but it was muffled by dust and barely audible over the increasing destruction.

He'd die, gladly, to have been able to follow Slade out of there.

"Robin!"

Robin's eyes jerked open at the sound of Starfire's voice.

"Robin, I noticed you were still awake, doing the work. I, also being awake, was wondering if there was any way I could be of assistance?" She stood hesitantly in the doorway, looking at him questioningly.

Pealing himself off the computer console, he checked the time on the screen. It was 3 AM. He stretched out his stiff muscles and yawned. "That's alright Star, I really ought to get some sleep. I can get back to this in the morning. Or…afternoon." He smiled sheepishly.

At his friendly tone, Starfire seemed to loosen up. "An excellent idea! Perhaps I can assist you then?"

Robin sighed, but smiled. As annoying as it was that his friends that his friends liked to keep an eye on him, Starfire's lack of subtlety was refreshing in a way. He took one last look at the screen before turning it all off with the push of a button. "Sure, why not?" No more secrets. That had been the promise he'd made to himself, and he intended to keep it.

He walked past Starfire to the door, touching her shoulder as he did so. "Thanks for waking me up. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, tomorrow. Good night, Robin," she said softly.

"Good night, Star."

* * *

Starfire watched Robin disappear through the doors and down the hall, the shadows quickly swallowing his form. Her hand slowly found its way to her shoulder where his had been, and she sighed. He always worked so hard. She knew that that was just what he did, that he liked to, and that more often than not his late nights proved most beneficial for the team.

But none of that stopped her from wishing he didn't worry so much. No, worry was the wrong word. Robin didn't worry, he acted, and that was what she loved so much about him. But sometimes her desire, her need, to see that her friends were happy got in the way of letting them do what they felt the needed to do.

She moved to the computer and switched on the monitor. Images and articles formed a collage dedicated to one man: Slade. She sighed and shut the computer down. She understood the face that haunted Robin's dreams and lurked in the peripherals of his life. But more than anything she wished it were possible for him to live in peace.

Even though she knew it was not.

She retreated to her own room and tried to sleep, only to toss and turn for hours. Finally she gave up and opened the curtains on her windows to let in the new day. The sun was just rising. Breathing in deeply, she closed her eyes and felt the sunlight on her eyelids. Happiness flooded her heart as she counted the things in life she was thankful for: her friends, the safety of the city, the certainty that the sun WOULD rise each morning, the welfare of her friends and family back home on Tamaran…. As the list continued, her boots lost contact with the floor.

She opened her eyes. The city before her glowed with the golden light of the sun. Wouldn't the view from the roof be even more beautiful? Grinning, she opened the window and let her happiness carry her to the rooftop, rising faster as the joy of flight took over.

* * *

Raven's eyes snapped open as she felt the presence of another, just in time to see the glowing face of Starfire pop up over the edge of the roof. Wait, what was Starfire doing up so early?

She didn't bother to move out of her meditation position, instead keeping her body several feet off the concrete via levitation. "Well you're up early."

Starfire spun around at the sound of Raven's voice. "Oh, Raven! I did not expect to see you up here! Are you also up to see the sunrise?"

Raven shrugged. "Helps me meditate." Her eyes shifted to the sun itself. It really was beautiful. "Were you the one who finally put Robin to bed this morning?"

Her question elicited a slight failing in the smile on Starfire's face. "Yes. He fell asleep doing more work on Slade."

Raven nodded solemnly and closed her eyes.

"I fear he will never truly be free of him, Raven." The alien princess settled into a similar meditation stance in the air next to Raven, her height above the roof fluctuating slightly with her emotions. "I fear he will always feel that he has to 'be ready'."

"Slade is still out there," Raven returned. "And as long as he is, we DO have to be ready. I understand why you're worried, Starfire. But sometimes…"

"…Robin feels that it is something that he must 'just do'." Starfire finished.

"Yes." Raven felt a pang of sadness next to her, and recognized a similar pang in her own heart. "Though I question how much of his insomnia is because of Slade, and how much he had before." She felt Starfire's questioning eyes on her now, but still refrained from reopening her own.

* * *

The alarms on their communicators went off as Cyborg was shoving another piece of pizza into his mouth. Robin was the first to recite the location that triggered their alarms, and then they were off to the scene of the crime.

A very angry man in uniform greeted the Teen Titans at a very sorry looking Wayne Enterprises.

"Couldn't you get here any sooner?" the man hollered, face redder than a basket of tomatoes. "She made off with the device practically hours ago!"

"And I thought PLASMUS got ugly when woken up," Beast Boy muttered aside to Cyborg.

Cyborg just shrugged. "Girl must have been pretty good to get in and out of here so fast."

"And to destroy so much of the building," Starfire added quietly.

Robin's eyes narrowed with silent fury as the man continued to yell. "Just tell us what she looked like, what she stole, and where you think she went."

"Oh, NOW you little kids want to do some real work!" The man crossed his arms. "About her height," he said tersely, nodding to Starfire. "Red hair, pulled back. Lots of leather, all black or dyed orange. Boots with heals. Used guns and explosives. Very acrobatic." He paused to eye Robin, almost accusingly. "Stole a high security chip. No clue where she went."

Cyborg's mind ran over all the information. So she was new, obviously. Maybe a new Hive recruit? Had a certain flair, clearly, so maybe she was on her own. Didn't sound like she had any special powers, which put her on the same plane as Robin, but this break-in proved her quite capable despite that. Well, whoever she was, the Teen Titans would…

That was when he noticed, as Robin dismissed the man and headed back toward the T car, that their leader had adopted a very grim attitude. Uh-oh.

"Hey, Rob, are you—"

"Fine. There's no more for us to do here. Let's just go back." He climbed into the front passenger seat and waited for the other Titans to follow suit.

Cyborg didn't miss Raven and Starfire's exchanged looks. "Hey, guys," he whispered at them before they turned back to the car. "Is it just me, or is Robin acting funny?"

Starfire remained silent, but looked downright droopy and nervous.

"Robin was up late again last night looking over Slade's old files," Raven murmured. "The man said this girl dressed in black and orange. You do the math."

Cyborg's stomach dropped about a mile. "No. No way. He can't…" He trailed off as Raven shot him a dead serious look.

"Robin…does a lot of thinking," Starfire said, though whether it was an explanation or an excuse, Cyborg didn't know.

"Yo, guys, you coming or what?" Beast Boy called from the back seat of the car.

Raven and Starfire walked away before Cyborg could say anymore. With a similar dark expression to Robin's, he took his seat behind the wheel and started the car.

"So…" he began, tentatively, as the car raced through their city. "Any thoughts on the new girl?"

"Jinx's sister?" Beast Boy offered jokingly from the back. Or not jokingly, since Cyborg wasn't sure how serious he was being about that.

The rest of them were silent.

Cyborg risked a glance at Robin.

"Slade." The lanky teen's masked eyes were narrowed nearly to slits as he stared grimly out the window.

If it was possible, the car dropped into even deeper silence.

"Well…" Beast Boy began. "I know we said we never wanted to see him again, but…c'mon, he's the only bad guy we were never able to beat."

While it was true that it turned Cyborg's stomach to know that Slade was still out there, somewhere, with no one to answer to…Beast Boy was right. The only person ever to defeat Slade was Terra, and she died doing it. No matter what Beast Boy said about her missing statue. He had to question whether the Titans really COULD take Slade on. Whether they could handle it.

Whether Robin could handle it.

"So…what do we do?" Starfire asked, quietly.

Silence answered her.

Finally, Robin sighed and sat back in his seat. "Wait. And watch. That's all we CAN do."

"We can research the chip," Raven volunteered.

"Already on my to-do list."

"Extra patrols?" Beast Boy asked shakily.

"In pairs."

But Cyborg knew the truth. Slade was too crafty to be caught. If they were going up against him again, chances are it was going to be on his terms. They were just going to have to make sure they could beat him at his own game

Grim determination set in his jaw. "And Robin?"

Robin looked up. "Yeah Cyborg?"

"That includes you. No going off on your own."

Starfire nodded fervantly, which Cyborg could see since she was just behind Robin.

And Robin actually smiled. Cyborg thought he even heard his leader chuckle a little. "I promise, guys. I promise."


	2. Going Black

It was the sound of loss that still echoed down the hallway, with each step he took. Most days he could push it aside, remember a time before her smile lit up this place. A time before, when he'd been only a lost child, looking for something, even though he didn't know what it was, until he found it.

Today was not one of those days. Today, her laugh rang in his ears as clearly as if she was really there, laughing at one of his jokes. Today was not one of those days he spent cheering up his friends with his usual brand of comedy, putting himself out there to lighten the mood. Today, he could use a little cheering up himself.

Beast Boy closed his eyes, wishing someone would just put their arm around him, and tell him they still missed her, too. Maybe even tell him, for once, that he was worth something to them.

He made a point of walking to the main room before he found himself standing in front of her door again. His eyes glazed over, he nearly ran into Raven coming through the doors as soon as they opened. He quickly snapped to attention, stuttering an apology, which she simply shrugged off and continued on her way. He sighed, shoulders drooping again, and continued on into the room.

Only Robin was there, his back to the door, eyes glued to a computer screen. Beast Boy approached him and looked over his shoulder at the map spread out across the screen. It was Jump City.

"So...what are you up to?" he asked, scratching his head. It was always like walking on eggshells when Robin got all focused like this.

"Planning patrol routes that cover as much area in as little time as possible," Robin answered, not looking up. "I also want to cover all the places we fought Slade before, just in case."

"Uh...like his old hideout?" Sweat began to prickle on the back of his neck. Even in pairs, going somewhere like that could be a lot more dangerous than some open place in the city.

"No. We covered there as a team last night. Nothing's changed, and I don't think there's anything there that's still of any use to him."

Relief let Beast Boy's shoulders relax once more.

Robin suddenly switched off the monitor and straightened, stretching. "I was just about to try out the new route, actually. Want to come?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," he responded without thinking. It was probably a good idea anyway, to help him get his mind off of Terra. Unless the abandoned amusement park was a stop on the route, that was.

* * *

Raven stood still in the middle of her room, undecided. She wasn't a big talker, but she found herself wondering which would help her most: meditation, or talking to Cyborg. Personal problems and unruly emotions could simply be meditated away, but Robin was a different story. The Titans themselves were a different story.

She sighed, resignedly, before turning and walking from her room. She had grown so much since coming to Jump City, as evidenced by what she was about to do. She was not a leader. She did not initiate social interactions with people. She read in her corner, nothing but a wallflower. She watched, spectated, thoroughly convinced of her own self-unimportance.

True, she had grown and overcome much. But defeating Trigon, her father, had only been the threshold to a much bigger set of obstacles. She still instinctively recoiled from the idea of going shopping with Starfire, or to a carnival with Beast Boy and Cyborg. She loved her friends, a kind of love she'd long ago never hoped she'd have, but there were still those times when her shell took over. She was relatively sure there always would be.

But not today, apparently. Swallowing the thoughts telling her to go back to dark hole that was her room, she knocked on Cyborg's door.

She didn't have to wait long before he was there, surprise making his eyebrows jerk upwards a few levels. "Raven! Hey, uh, what's up?"

"We need to talk." She looked past him into the darkness of his room. That was one thing she'd always liked about his room. "May I come in?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," he stuttered, confused. He moved out of the way, scratching his head, as he watched her cross over into the dimly lit room and closed the door behind her. "Is something the matter?"

The reality of what she was doing suddenly hit her full force, rooting her feet to the floor in the middle of the room. Computer screens flickered and little blinking lights bathed the room in an odd cave like feel. She quickly closed her eyes and assumed a meditative trance, and breathed.

"Uh...Raven?"

She turned around to face him. "Slade," she breathed. "If he really is back, we..." she sighed, trailing off as she gathered her resolve. She really wasn't good at this. "We need to be ready."

"We're not ready?" Cyborg raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Raven, we beat him before, we took down Trigon, and we defeated the Brotherhood. I think we know how to handle one guy. Even if it is Slade."

"Slade is devious, and he plans. He probably already has us in his crosshairs. He underestimated us before, but he-"

"What do you expect us to do?" he cut her off, his voice serious now, his eyes narrowed. "What can we do that we haven't already? We've taken all the necessary precautions, even Robin's got his act together."

Raven sighed, staring sightlessly at the floor. "I don't know," she breathed. "I just think we should have a plan of action in case...in case the worst should happen."

Cyborg took a step toward her, arms raised to the height of her shoulders. "Raven, I don't think-"

"If something happens to Robin, we still need to be able to lead ourselves, Cyborg." There was a strength in her flat monotone that she hadn't been sure she'd be able to let out.

"What do you mean? Like a backup leader, in case wants to turn Robin into his apprentice again?"

"Or worse," Raven finished.

She felt the wave of cold surprise and horror that washed over Cyborg for the split second after she spoke, but instantly he was stepping toward her again. One would have thought that there was nothing comforting in his cold, prosthetic hands, but as he placed them on her shoulders, she felt only warmth. There was always a warmth around him, a fire that perpetually burned in his eyes, and it came out in the way he could move even the machine parts of himself. They were him, in a way she knew she could never truly understand.

"And you think I should be that leader," he finished softly.

"Yes."

But he shook his head. He backed away, turned around to gaze into the darkness, and sighed. "No, Raven, I think it should be you."

Now it was her turn to be surprised. Her head jerked up, eyes boring burning holes into his metallic back. "You put together and led the Titans East," she insisted, still in her monotone. Though there was perhaps a new fierceness to it.

"Yeah, but Raven, that was against Brother Blood. He was MY bad guy, and that...that was something I just had to do, for me. You know? This, Slade, I..." he turned around to face her, arms gesturing and waving for emphasis. "I agree with you that Slade is one bad dude. But you've got an intuition for this guy that I can't match. He's smart, and we need somebody who can be just as smart. I may know a lot about computers," he said, tapping his head. "But you're better than I am at outsmarting the bad guys. And you'd make a great leader."

Raven took in his praise and compliments much like she'd take in a cup of unsweetened tea. It was bitter, an assault on everything she believed about herself, but not unwelcome. Refreshing. And it imbued her with a new strength, because she knew Cyborg meant everything he said.

She looked down. "Thank you." She didn't know what else to say. But how could she think of leading a team? Her friends? What if she messed up? What if someone got hurt? What if...

"But hey," he interrupted her thoughts, slapping a hand on her shoulder. "We're not gonna lose Robin this time, so don't worry about it too much, okay?"

He was smiling, and there was confidence in that smile, but his eye told her that he knew they had reached an unspoken agreement.

Should anything happen to Robin, Raven would take his place as the leader of the Teen Titans.

* * *

There were two great advantages to having Beast Boy along for a patrol. One was that he could do all of the things that Robin couldn't. He could fly, and so he could see things that Robin might miss, and he could turn into a bloodhound and sniff for the woman they were after, and he could fit into and smaller spaces, in case there was need of that.

The other advantage was that he couldn't fly Robin himself. The reason why this was an advantage was because of Robin's thorough love of swinging though his city by means of his own gadgets and physical prowess. He worked hard to stay in shape, he loved testing his body to its limits, and he liked to use patrols as reflection time.

And he'd certainly had more to reflect upon of late. Putting Slade out of his mind had been a common practice for him ever since the Brotherhood made its first move, though that mask had never left his dreams. But now, now that he was convinced that Slade truly had returned, he didn't feel how he'd thought he'd feel. He had thought that he'd feel...invigorated, ready to meet the one foe he had never really beaten, the one person who really could push him to all of his limits. It was a thrill.

But tonight, he just felt...scared was the wrong word. He was not afraid. He did not fear Slade, or even himself anymore. But he HAD worked hard for this city, and his friends. He'd lost a friend to this man. But it wasn't anger alone that surged through him at the thought of Terra. There was also indignation. How dare that man come back, after everything he'd done?

He shook his head, banishing the thought. Maybe once he'd been able to believe, on some level, that Slade did have some sense of honor in him, that after their cooperation against Trigon, Slade would leave the Titans and Jump City alone out of some sense of respect. But he knew now that that had been a silly thought. Slade wasn't honorable. He was a criminal. Nothing more.

But still. Some part of him felt betrayed. Just a little. There were similarities between the two of them that he just could not ignore, and even though he had grown up since those days he'd worn that disgusting black and orange, he still hated to see qualities he loved so much in himself brought out in such a negative way.

Maybe part of him was still afraid that the face under the mask would be his own.

Beast Boy suddenly dashed up to him and changed from bloodhound to human. "I think I found her!" he barked quickly, before changing back again and sprinting down the street.

Robin instantly jerked into a sprint himself, following the green dog to the back entrance to the warehouse of another tech company. When Beast Boy suddenly skidded to a halt in front of the massive garage doors, Robin quickly scanned the scene. No guards, security cameras taken out. But how did she get in?

"Up there!" Beast Boy barked. Robin hadn't even noticed his partner had changed back, but the little green Titan had suddenly shrunk and grown feathers as Robin turned to look at him, and then he was propelling himself through the air toward a vent near the roof of the warehouse.

Robin squinted to get a closer look. The grates were bent. Beast Boy latched his talons into the grates and tugged, jerking the whole piece of metal out of the wall. Too easily. Catching it before it hit the pavement with a crash, the boy wonder gently placed it up against the wall and then looked back up at Beast Boy.

But he was gone. Scratching sounds echoed from the newly made hole in the wall.

Robin smirked, bringing out his grappling gun and aiming it at the rooftop. It was a simple matter to get up to and into the vent, and it was plenty large enough for him. "Beast Boy, wait up!" he called softly, hoping his voice would carry ahead of the sounds of his hands and knees against the metal sides of the vent. The hard part was keeping his steel-toed boots from knocking around.

He suddenly remembered to call the other Titans for backup. His hand reached for his communicator, and then he thought better about having a conversation while trying to be sneaky. So he just pressed the alert button instead. They could track his signal, and find their own way in. He and Beast Boy could hold their own for now, he figured.

He froze as a tremor ran through the entire building. Then he heard and felt something very disturbing.

Beast Boy stopped moving, and then craned his head back to give Robin a questioning look.

Both of them yelled in shock, then fear, as the warehouse collapsed around and on top of them.

Then everything went black.


	3. Wakeup Call

It's been awhile. I apologize. I'm going to try to get back into a regular updating schedule, but we'll just have to see, won't we? *cackles*

* * *

His head was pounding, and his body did not want to cooperate with him. Groaning, he slowly rediscovered how to move his hand again and eventually located his head with it. Then his face.

As the numbness slipped away, taking with it its protection, his head felt more and more like it'd been hit by a train. Nothing felt broken, but he was bandaged up in several places. Oh, and his throat was painfully dry. A small detail nearly swept away beneath his fiercely aching body, but getting water was one of the few things he might actually be able to take care of right now.

Very slowly and carefully, he rose to a sitting position and immediately regretted it. Stars flooded his vision and threatened to drown him, but he hung on and waited until he could see again. The sluggish part of his brain responsible for coherent thought decided on a whim that he maybe ought to get his head checked out.

Eventually, he was able to make sense of the jumble of sensory information plaguing his skull. The room was dark, but not so dark that he couldn't see. Dim light was filtering through a grimy window wedged up against the ceiling. But he could not for the life of him remember where was, or even how he got here! Squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing his temples, he tried to remember.

Back at the Tower.

Patrolling his city.

The warehouse.

His eyes snapped open. Beast Boy!

That familiar cocktail of panic and adrenaline was already surging through his system when the slam of the door's heavy lock rolled over and the door itself swung smoothly open to reveal none other than-

"Slade," Robin hissed.

"Good to see you awake," Slade returned, sounding frighteningly confident. As usual. in fact, he even leaned against the doorframe like he hadn't a care in the world.

Robin felt rage add itself to the chemical cocktail already in his bloodstream. But there would be no banter or games today. "Where's Beast Boy?" he demanded.

Slade's single eye narrowed by a hair. "Alive." He paused, letting the word and all its meanings sink in. The follow up "for now" was left unsaid, but it echoed around the room anyway. "It was very generous of you to deliver him to me, Robin." His tone came across with what Robing fumingly recognized as glee. "One more hostage to use, and a very useful one."

Sudden confusion broke through Robin's usual set of emotions associated with Slade "What-"

"You will," Slade spoke over him, cutting him off. "Serve me. Or Beast Boy will die."

The threat wasn't surprising. Neither was this whole plan, really. But something felt off. Hostages? Slade had never involved innocent people before. Not this directly, at least. It had always been between him and Robin, before. Except for Terra, but that had been a different situation.

Robin opened his mouth.

"And then we can move on to the OTHER room full of hostages."

Robin suddenly felt very cold, and numb except for the fear and dread pooling in his stomach. He knew where this was going. No, he knew where it had already gone. It wasn't just the Titans' lives on the line this time. They had proven too unpredictable, to hard to control for Slade to really want to use them again. But civilian hostages...people that Robin could not, under any circumstances, allow to die...

"You're a smart boy, Robin," Slade interrupted, in almost a whisper. He could, no doubt, see where Robin's train of thought had led him. "You knew you'd always come back to me, didn't you?"

"Slade..." Robin said. But he didn't know what he wanted to say next. Begging and pleading was not just out of character for him, but also far below his standards. But he found himself having to actively not do so. He couldn't play his usual game, this time. No, if he wanted to save those people, he had to come up with a failsafe plan. And in the meantime...

Slade was probably grinning behind that mask. "I ALWAYS finish what I start."

* * *

Starfire just about scared herself to death when her communicator suddenly went off. Next to her, levitating in her meditative trance, Raven was by contrast completely unruffled. But from her newly found place on the floor, Starfire could see that Raven looked about how she herself felt.

As they checked their communicators simultaneously, Starefire gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth. "Robin's in trouble!"

Raven didn't seem to react at all, but the Tamaranian princess knew her friend well enough to guess that the pair of them felt about the same: sick, and scared.

"Cyborg," Raven urgently called into her communicator.

"I got it, Raven," came the response. "Grab Star and fly ahead. I'll take the T-car."

Starfire and Raven locked gazes, and were gone through the window in the blink of an eye.

"Raven, do you think," Starfire started asking as they flew. "Do you think..." She trailed off.

"I can't hear you, Starfire."

But she knew she didn't have to finish her thought. She knew they were all thinking it. Robin and Beast Boy had to be okay. They had to be. Robin and Beast Boy were together, so they'd be able to handle this. Right?

She didn't want to think about if she was wrong. _Please, please let this be a false alarm,_ Starfire thought. _Please let it not be Slade..._

"There," Raven said in her flat monotone. It was strange to think that just a couple years ago, Starfire had found Raven's emotionless state unnerving, unnatural, and confusing. Now, she knew better. Now, she knew that Raven DID feel, just as much as any emotion-driven Tamaranian. She just didn't like to show it.

Starfire liked to think that she could still feel it though.

She glanced towards the roads leading to the collapsed warehouse, and caught sight of a blue car speeding towards them. The T-Car really could go, when it needed to. It wasn't long before the three remaining Titans stood solemnly before the warehouse.

Starfire was trying hard not to worry. It wasn't working.

"The signal's gone," Cyborg said, reading something flashing on his forearm. But it WAS here."

"Perhaps it has been broken somehow?" Starfire offered.

"The only thing we can do now is search through it," Raven barked. Or, it was Raven's tired, monotone version of a bark. But Starfire felt the tension in her words. Her shadowed friend was close to her breaking point with worry.

The three of them began shifting blocks of concrete and plaster, beams of wood and bits of metal. This couldn't have been Slade, Starfire thought as she worked. Carefully, in case she accidentally crushed someone she was trying to find. But Slade wouldn't do this kind of thing. Experience had taught her that much, she hoped. She didn't want to think she was just thinking wishfully, but what were the odds that a warehouse would RANDOMLY collapse just when Robin and Beast Boy were inside it? What were the odds that another villain had decided to strike just when they suspected that Slade was back in town, unless that particular villain had a particular masked employer.

It was hard to keep from searching through the debris frantically. Worry ate away at her mind, slowly working her thoughts to faster and faster speeds. She'd have been practically manic by now if she hadn't started using the meditation techniques Raven had taught her. She hated worrying, and she hated feeling useless, and she didn't cope well with either.

Their alarms went off again before they found anything. It was Mumbo, robbing another bank. Starfire looked up at her two friends for direction, and caught Cyborg giving Raven a questioning look.

Raven shot him a simmering glare back, but quickly covered it with a sigh. "Starfire, you stay here and keep searching. Cyborg and I will take care of Mumbo."

Starfire nodded slowly, feeling like she was missing something, but trusting in Raven. "I'll call you if I find either of them."

The empath nodded, and began walking towards Cyborg's car, forcing him to follow after her.

Starfire watched them go, feeling her heart breaking in two. She didn't much like being alone. But being alone in the wake of so much destruction, searching amid the debris for two close friends, neither of whom she knew for certain was alive...

She choked back tears and tried to lose herself in her work. In moving the rubble around.

This was a nightmare not even Control Freak could conjure up.

* * *

Beast Boy was no Robin. He wasn't new to the whole superhero thing by this point in his life, but that didn't mean he had the equivalent to Robin's training. He hadn't. But everyone had their strengths and their weaknesses, and one of his particular strengths was his natural ability to not stay captured for very long. It was part of the whole shape-changing thing.

Except, Slade had already thought of this. He didn't have magic like Mumbo, or Mad Mod's gadgets; he hadn't ever really had to deal directly with Beast Boy before, or had any reason to, so he hadn't actually had anything readily prepared for the little green changeling.

Unless, of course, Damien counts.

Confusion splattered across the inside of Beast Boy's skull like bird poop all over a windshield when he saw the girl. He was no Robin; it took him a lot more than a few seconds to put together who he was seeing, and why he was seeing her.

"Wha-who are you? And what am I-"

In a well-intentioned move to stand, he realized a little too late that his feet were tied, and so ended up flat on his face. "Ow."

"You're not really all that smart, are you?" the girl questioned.

Beast Boy rolled over and looked up at her, still confused. Then he looked down at his tied hands and feet.

Then he remembered.

"You're Slade's new girl!" he practically shouted to the heavens.

She winced. "Sure. Can't you, like, change your form or something?"

"What? Oh, yeah." He shrugged, but stayed where he was. "Yeah, isn't kind of weird for Slade to use rope?"

"How am I supposed to know?" She flung her hands up in the air, and then crossed them over her chest and leaned back against the wall. "He just told me to watch you."

"Slade," Beast Boy hissed, eyes narrowing, tone grim. He had to find Robin. Oh, this was SO not good! He had to find Robin, and get them both the heck out of here; how hard could that be? He was a master of disguise, and escape, and Slade had clearly underestimated him...

His train of thought faded into mist as he slowly noticed that his new companion was looking at him funny. "Robin does that too," she finally remarked.

"Look, I don't know who you are, or what you're doing with Slade," the little green one began earnestly. "But he is one seriously bad dude. I'd get as far away from him as I can get, if I were you." If he could save her, maybe that would make up for...

She wouldn't meet his eyes. "It's not quite like that. Anyway, he told me to tell you not to try anything, or he'd start killing hostages."

Start killing... "Wait, there are hostages?" His sense of "ability to handle this thing" suddenly dropped to zero. Hostages meant he couldn't do anything. ANYTHING. Maybe other bad guys could be reasoned with, played maybe, but not Slade. Slade was not a stupid man, far from it, and he was a killer. He'd do it. He wouldn't even hesitate.

Hope steadily draining from his heart at the same rate as the color drained from his face.

"I'm Damien. I'm going to be your only friend from now till Slade decides to kill you."


End file.
